Having seen the results on Todd’s site and elsewhere on the web, I decided to give Flickr a try. I’m impressed so far with its ease of use and flexibility. I also like the idea of hosting most of my photos offsite from here on out, as bandwith will become an issue at some point.
One thing I’m gonna have to do is compress my photos down from 4MP to something more reasonable to conserve space, so expect the ones I’ve posted so far to get a lot smaller.
Oh, and they were bought by Yahoo this morning. No word on what this means yet.
I’m testing a Flickr layout template with some flower pictures from last spring. I’m liking the service very much so far. Now I just need to start taking pictures again…
Two freelance checks in two days. The VISA bill will be paid off and we have seed money for one of two major house issues: a new big-people-bed or 2/3 of the first floor sanded. Jen and I are going to sit down and decide what needs to happen first.
Does anybody have first-hand experience with a Sleep Number bed? We’d like to hear some anecdotal evidence to justify $1,500 for a mattress.
Mac OS Firewall Primer
Includes some good UNIX info and shell scripts.
I pulled lunch out of the oven on Sunday and went looking for Jen around the house. Realizing she had gone outside, I found her in the garden, trimming back some of the dead brush around last year’s perennials. She’s been surrounding herself with gardening books since she got a new library card, and my family sent her home from Christmas with the entire horticulture section of Barnes & Noble. Lately I can feel her gardening neurons firing like firecrackers, and I think she’s been waiting to get outside in the dirt since the end of January. Our beds look a lot less barren than they did in February, because we now have crocuses sprouting like crabgrass, backed up by daffodils and some early scattered tulips. We have grand plans for our yard this year, but as always, the money situation means we have to be clever about our planting and landscaping. Jen somehow made $34.72 successfully spread out over the entire yard last year in time for the wedding, and I think she’s got similar excellent plans for this year. Hopefully that also involves my renting a jackhammer for a warm afternoon and pulling the concrete sidewalk along the west side of the house. (Thanks, Shelly, for the beautiful lavender, by the way.)
Meanwhile, a quick scouting trip down the back side of Beechwood Ave. revealed a major sewer installation along the property lines of our neighbors’ houses to the end of Rolling Road. Our house sits on the high side of what used to be a creekbed, and the southeast corner of our property line is the beginning of the low spot which continues down the hill. It looks like the County is going to dig up and put in a 4″ drainage system starting two houses down by the looks of the concrete junction boxes and corrugated piping stacked back there. We can only hope this will help dry out our corner of the property and remove the mosquito problem we suffer through in the summertime. Curious, though, is why they’re not starting in our backyard and our neighbors’, because he technically has a bog for a back lawn, and the area out behind our greenhouse gets pretty mucky after a good rain…
Our weekend was a very laid-back couple of days, involving some recovery time on Saturday, a scouting trip to Restoration Hardware, where we found a strong candidate for hallway lighting, viewings of Napoleon Dynamite (recommended) and Saw (skip it), and relaxation. Sunday I attempted to get some painting done after a grocery run, but quickly lost concentration and returned to my laptop to get the weblog running.
Overall, I’m very happy and impressed with MT so far. The novelty of using the web interface instead of booting into BBedit every time I want to post to the site hasn’t worn off yet, and it’s BEAUTIFUL to be able to edit one include file and have it propagate through the entire site. I’m happy.
And Linda, we are terribly sorry we missed your birthday.
’56 Chevy Belair – $5995
In Annapolis! gulp
Napoleon Dynamite
We finally saw this, and it made us uncomfortable and we laughed our asses off.
It’s been almost four years to the day that I started writing on this website, and in that time I’ve switched jobs, been engaged, gotten married (which almost didn’t happen, I love you baby!) and bought a new house. We’ve come a long way since 2001, and I’ve tried to write and photograph about as much of it as I could. For both our birthdays, I decided to finally invest in a commercial weblog application and move into the future. This journal will stay online at this location and be put into archive mode, and I’ll update the links to point to the new domain easily.
For the final name choice, I decided to boost a song title from Soul Coughing and bought www.idiotking.org for my new site. Come on over and join me!
I don’t usually make a big deal out of my birthday, which is kind of stupid, because I love birthdays. When I was a kid, I loved having all my friends over for the day, opening presents, and having fun (and let’s face it, who doesn’t like to be the center of the party?). Since I got out of college, I’ve kept the day sort of on the down-low, and with a few exceptions it’s been a quiet occasion.
Because money is tight, I told Jen the perfect gift would be to hit our old haunt Peter’s in Fell’s Point for a quiet dinner together. Sometime in the middle of last week, she asked me if switching to the Helmand would be OK for a change of pace. Having always wanted to try Afghan food, I agreed immediately (it’s on the long list of places-we-want-to-go but never do).
Imagine my surprise when we walked to the back of the restaurant and I recognized the profiles of our friends Matt and Emily sitting at the bar, and suddenly realized there were four other couples waiting to surprise me. What a great evening! We were seated at a large table in back and proceeded to eat, drink, and catch up with great friends over delicious exotic Afghan cuisine. For anyone who hasn’t tried it, I recommend the Helmand and their waitstaff highly.
From there, we headed up Charles Street for a cocktail and conversation, and stayed out until midnight like grownup cosmopolitan adults, something we haven’t done in months. I didn’t know how much I needed to get out and be with friends until Jen made it happen, and it was the best gift she could have given me. Thanks, baby, and thanks, everybody! (and to the folks who couldn’t make it—we’ll see you soon.)
Carpocalypse
A weekly show about a demolition derby in Florida.